Tender is the Flesh

Posted on Mon Mar 23rd, 2026 @ 8:42am by Narrator & Maeve MacKenna & Jennifer Bryant

4,731 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: Club Blood, New York City
Timeline: March 10, 1992

Club Blood squatted on a side street in the Meat Packing District, its windows blacked out and a single red bulb burning over the door, the only thing distinguishing it from the abandoned buildings crowding around it. Bass from the music playing inside was far too loud to be contained and it leaked through brick and mortar and into the sidewalk in a low industrial thrum that rattled trash cans and made the line of patrons sway as if they were already dancing.

The queue to enter stretched half a block down the road, a dense procession of fishnets and leather. PVC pants creaked and platform boots scuffed the pavement in restless anticipation as pale hands lifted clove cigarettes to lips painted the color of dried roses. Smoke hung thick in the cold night air, making it love-sweet and acrid as it curled around the teased hair and shaved temples of the people who traded lighters and gossiped about who was inside the club tonight while they waited.

At the front of the line stood a man dressed entirely in black, sunglasses perched on his face despite the hour. He kept order among the desperate crowd, letting only one or two patrons at a time slip past him and into the club’s darkened haven.

Maeve hadn’t meant to end up at the front of the line so quickly.

It just… happened.

The bass thudded through her ribs like a second pulse, deep and insistent, and her body answered it before her head did. The night smelled wrong here. Not bad. Not rotten. Just rich. Oil and metal and sweat and something darker threaded through it, copper-warm and intimate. Blood, but not fresh. Blood that had been breathed on. Touched. Wanted.

Her mouth watered before she realised her jaw had tightened.

Easy, girl.

She kept her shoulders loose, chin slightly tipped, letting the sway of the crowd move her instead of fighting it. Leather brushed her bare arm. Someone laughed too loudly behind her. Somewhere close, a heart kicked fast and shallow, nerves jangling. She could count the beats if she tried.

She didn’t.

Jennifer was beside her. Maeve could feel her without looking, the way you feel heat from another body in winter. Different from before. Quieter. Focused. Like a knife laid flat in the palm instead of raised.

Maeve glanced at her once, quick. No words. Just a look that said we’re still us. That mattered more than anything else right now.

When the bouncer finally turned his attention to them, Maeve felt it like a hook between the shoulders.

Jennifer returned Maeve's glance. That same quiet, simple reassurance. She was dressed for a place like this but not too well. Snugly fit black jeans, knee-high black leather boots with three inch heels, a black turtleneck, and a black leather jacket. Her dark curls fell past her shoulders. No more rainbows. Not here. Not now. Her hands were in her pockets like it was the most casual thing in the world. She smiled at the bouncer. She wasn't diffident. She was bold. But she didn't speak first. If she and Maeve had made the hoped for impression, the bouncer wouldn't be the problem. If they hadn't, well, she would let him speak first.

The bounder’s attitude was one of no nonsense irritation as he corralled and organized the masses waiting to get into the club like the human cattle he viewed them to be. With large, muscular forearms folded across his chest, he spoke in short clipped words that helped to solidify how little he cared for the people standing in front of him.

“I.D.s.” He said while looking down at Maeve and Jennifer, a simple demand for what he needed to see before letting them inside.

Jennifer gave him the fake ID prepared for this mission. She wasn't much younger than 21 anyway. It was hardly a stretch.

The bouncer took the I.D. and examined it for a long moment, his sunglasses slipping down his nose enough that they could see his eyes were fully black and dark. Whatever the man was, it wasn’t fully human.

“Yeah, okay.” He replied before really looking at them for the first time. There was another long uncomfortable pause that may have ended badly for the pair because while Jennifer may have looked older, Maeve did not.. but then the wind shifted and the bouncer’s nostrils flared slightly as he picked up on their scent.

“Oh!” He seemed happy to discover this revelation about them, “Why didn’t you enter through the back?” But before they could reply he let them into the club, the heavy bass lines of the music were blaring inside. “VIPs are allowed on the second floor, just show them your smile.

The interior of Club Blood was dark and cavernous while being aggressively industrial in design. Concrete walls, metal grates, low ceilings, and harsh strobe lighting that pulses in time with pounding techno music that the sea of patrons bounced and grinded in time with. The atmosphere was claustrophobic and predatory, charged with sweat, bass, and a barely contained feeling of pending violence.

The door shut heavy behind Maeve and Jennifer, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the music. Whatever daylight rules applied outside didn’t survive the threshold.

Heat pressed in from all sides. Bodies moved too close, too fluid, their edges blurred by strobes and sweat. The floor vibrated under Maeve’s boots, bass crawling up her legs and settling somewhere low and restless. Every surface seemed damp with life — breath, touch, pulse — and it made her skin prickle in a way she didn’t entirely trust.

Eyes followed them.

Not all at once. Not openly. But she felt it anyway — the subtle turn of attention, the way conversations hitched and resumed a half-second later. A ripple through the room, quiet but deliberate.

Jennifer’s hand brushed hers, brief and grounding.

Maeve let her fingers hook lightly around Jennifer’s sleeve, just enough to remind herself she wasn’t alone in this. That this wasn’t just instinct dragging her forward.

The second floor loomed above them — a metal balcony wrapping the club’s edges like a waiting jaw. Red lights washed over it in slow pulses, illuminating silhouettes that didn’t dance so much as watch. Some leaned on the railing, drinks untouched, eyes tracking movement below with lazy interest.

Predators conserving energy.

Maeve swallowed, throat dry.

So this is how it starts, she thought.
Not with teeth. Not with violence.
With invitation.

She lifted her chin, let the music take her steps, and followed the pull deeper into the dark — already aware, with a cold little thrill, that something in this place knew exactly what she was.

And was very pleased she’d come inside.

Jennifer leaned close. "I think they might come to us," she said. "They know we're here. Let's make sure they court us." None of her words made clear that she and Maeve were on an undercover mission to stop these creatures. She didn't know how well they could here. "Come dance with me," she suggested with a confidence she didn't actually feel.

Jennifer moved towards the center of the floor. Most of these people were just people, even if they were circling something dark. Most but not all. Jennifer tried not to dwell on that. She tried to act confident. Even to act eager. Like she was drawn to all of this. Part of her was. That was the problem. She danced with a languid grace given by the same changes these monster had wrought in her system. Effortlessly displaying grace and power and, yes, a hungry gaze. An eager gaze. She didn't really try to draw the same from Maeve. The other girl was only a few years younger but they contained some important milestones. Jennifer couldn't help feel a little protective. She wanted to keep Maeve near her.

Maeve let Jennifer pull her onto the floor, the bass swallowing them whole.

For a moment, it helped. The movement. The rhythm. The simple, physical fact of being here, feet on solid ground, body moving with intention instead of instinct. She matched Jennifer’s pace, loose and fluid, letting the music give her something to hold onto.

But her eyes kept drifting upward.

Every time the strobes flared red, the balcony came back into view — the watchers still there, still unmoving. She could feel it now, clearer than before. Not hunger exactly. Not curiosity either. It was pressure. Like fingers at the base of her spine, nudging, patient and sure.

Come up.

Maeve’s jaw set.

She didn’t scare easy. Bullies never had. Monsters didn’t get a free pass just because they thought themselves untouchable. Whatever was up there didn’t feel bigger than her — it felt smug. Comfortable. Used to being obeyed.

And that made something in her itch.

Her gaze flicked back to Jennifer.

She was beautiful like this — controlled, sharp, holding herself together with sheer will. Maeve knew that look. The one that said I can do this even when every instinct was screaming otherwise.

Leaving her wasn’t an option.

Not like this.

Maeve leaned in close, lips near Jennifer’s ear, voice low enough to be lost to the music. “They’re waitin’,” she said. No drama. Just fact. “And I don’t like bein’ stared at like prey.”

Her fingers slid into Jennifer’s, firm and grounding. “I want to go up there,” she admitted. Honest. Unapologetic. “Not because they’re callin’ the shots — but because I am.”

A beat. Then softer, just for her. “I won’t leave you behind. We go together, or not at all.”

She lifted her chin again, eyes already tracking the stairs, the pull tightening in her chest — not fear, not surrender.

Challenge.

“Let’s see what they think they’re lookin’ at,” Maeve said.

And this time, when she took a step, it was toward the stairs.

Jennifer's gaze followed Maeve's. She saw the predators waiting and watching. She had a sense of how Maeve was feeling about this. About that gaze. Jennifer knew how she felt. They were looked at like prey. Like so much meat. She couldn't put Maeve through that. Jennifer met Maeve's eyes for a moment. The music was loud, but she knew what vampire hearing was like. So she leaned forward and whispered so softly that even inches away Maeve barely could hear. "Let them think it until we know we have them," she whispered. All of that smugness would end when the trap was sprung, but Jennifer wanted to make sure the vampires were in the trap first. As she pulled back, she said, still in a near whisper, "and I think Desmond would love it." If any overheard a little, let them think she and Maeve were just gossiping about boys. She wished they were. She had seen the drama between the two earlier. But now was work time.

"Let's not keep them waiting, " Jennifer said as she took Maeve's hand and headed right for the stairs. She tried to show an excitement she didn't really feel. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

Maeve and Jennifer were greeted by a set of metal stairs that were blocked off by an out of place red velvet rope and another oversized goon of a security guard. Standing with his arms folded across his chest, the man looked down at them with a critical gaze. “Ladies. This is the VIP section. Meaning it is reserved for a very specific group of clientele.”

"I think we're expected," Jennifer told them confidently.

"Oh yeah?” the security guard said with a low chuckle, clearly unconvinced. “If you think you—”

“Stop.”

The single word slid through the air like silk drawn over steel.

The guard froze instantly.

A man stepped forward from the velvet dark shadows of the nightclub, and Maeve and Jennifer felt the recognition before they fully saw him. They had seen him before, in dreams that had felt far too vivid to dismiss.

He was exquisitely fair, his sharp, angular features sculpted with an almost ethereal precision, as though an artist had labored lovingly over every line of his face. His skin held that luminous, porcelain pallor that seemed to gather and reflect the red glow above the door. Pale grey eyes, that were unnaturally light, nearly silver, regarded them from beneath a tousled fringe of dark brown hair that fell carelessly across his brow.

He was not merely handsome.

He was devastating.

“These lovely creatures are invited,” he said smoothly, his voice rich and decadent, each syllable caressed into existence. “Special guests for the evening.”

The security guard stepped aside without another word.

The man descended the stairs toward them, and every movement was deliberate. Fluid. Controlled. Predatory. He moved like a jungle cat that had never once known hunger it could not satisfy, strength coiled beneath elegant restraint. The night seemed to bend around him, the bass from inside dimming in their awareness as his presence eclipsed it.

“Come,” he murmured, extending a hand. “Sit with me. I have been expecting you.”

Up close, the air around him felt warmer and intoxicating, laced with something dark and faintly sweet. His gaze lingered on them with knowing intimacy, as though he had memorized the shape of their thoughts long before this moment.

“My name is Xarus.”

He took Jennifer’s hand with surprising gentleness, his fingers cool but steady. Lifting it slowly, deliberately, he pressed his soft pink lips to her knuckles in a kiss that was tender yet somehow possessive.

“It is a pleasure,” he said softly, his silver eyes never leaving hers, “to finally meet you.”

Maeve recognised him before she allowed herself to.

Not by his face, though that was unforgettable. Not even by his voice. By the weight of him. That same patient pressure she’d felt in sleep, steady and certain, like something that had never once doubted its own pull.

Seeing him didn’t surprise her.

It made everything click into place.

When he lifted Jennifer’s hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, Maeve felt something tighten low in her chest. Not jealousy. Not quite anger. Something protective and instinctive, sharp enough that she had to force her fingers to uncurl at her sides.

She didn’t look away from him.

He was beautiful in the way storms were beautiful — dangerous, deliberate, aware of the effect he had on everything around him. The room leaned toward him without being asked.

The scent around him made her pulse jump, warm and faintly sweet, and she hated that her body reacted at all. She steadied her breathing before it could betray her.

“Xarus,” she said, even and controlled, letting the name settle between them.

She stepped closer to Jennifer, their shoulders nearly aligned, not shielding her but standing with her.

“You’ve been expectin’ us,” Maeve continued, tone light but edged. “That’s either impressive… or you’re very sure of yourself.”

Her gaze flicked toward the stairs and back again.

“If we’re special guests,” she added, chin lifting slightly, “we won’t disappoint.”

She didn’t wait to be invited further.

Maeve turned toward the stairs and began to ascend, not rushing and not hesitating, moving as though this had been her idea all along.

Her heart was hammering, loud enough that she knew he could hear it.

She kept her back straight anyway.

He laughed at her remark, low and indulgent, the sound sliding over her like warm silk drawn slowly down bare skin. “Oh, my sweet and beautiful creature,” he murmured, savoring each word as though it belonged to him already, “men do not ascend to the heights I occupy without more than a touch of confidence.”

Xarus turned his attention to Maeve, his expression composed and devastatingly assured. His gaze did not rush; it claimed. There was something ancient in the way he regarded her, like a sovereign surveying land that had always, inevitably, been destined to fall under his dominion. He carried himself like a sacred cat draped across a pharaoh’s throne; languid, worshiped, lethal. He did not demand attention. He simply existed, and the room bent toward him.

“I am delighted you both chose to grace us tonight.”

As if the night itself obeyed him, the velvet rope separating them from the waiting vampires was drawn aside. The barrier between observer and prey vanished in an instant. What had once felt like a spectacle now felt like initiation.

“Come,” he said softly.

It was not loud. It did not need to be.

“Sit with me. Meet my children.”

The invitation unfurled like dark velvet, luxurious, dangerous, irresistible. His voice was a command wrapped in reverence, a promise of belonging edged with peril. He did not lunge. He did not chase. A true predator never needed to.

He simply opened the door to the lion’s den and waited for them to step inside.

Jennifer felt his kiss on her knuckles. There was a part of her that felt the temptation. She thought of Drew, though it had been months since she'd last spoken to him. She thought of Maeve beside her. She thought of the other X-Men. And she was herself again. "The pleasure is all mine," she said softly, glancing briefly to Maeve. "All ours." She ascended the stairs like it was the most natural thing in the world. She stepped with her friend into the lion's den. Though that was not the analogy that came to mind in this dark, sleek, powerful place. She looked to Xarus. She knew his voice and his face from her dreams but, like Maeve, it was more than that. She couldn't remember not knowing him. He moved with power. It scared her a little how confident he was. She knew she had been counting on that. She intended to take advantage of that. But it frightened her anyway. She made herself smile to him and then looked around as she slowly settled into a seat, crossing her legs with an affected ease she did not truly feel. "Come into my parlor..." she began, looking to him half-expectantly.

“That’s a rather forward proposition.” The blonde in skintight leather let the words curl off her tongue as she smiled, slow and deliberate. The faint flash of her fangs caught in the low light. Her gaze dragged over Jennifer’s thighs with open appraisal, not bothering to disguise her predatory hunger.

“So crass, Mina,” Xarus murmured before reaching out and tapping the blonde lightly on the tip of her nose in a almost playful but condensing manner before retreating to his seat at the back of the lounge. The chair was less furniture and more a declaration, it was high-backed and ornate, positioned like a throne from which he could observe everything and miss nothing.

He settled into it with languid grace, one leg crossing over the other, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

“But I’m sure we can devise something… intimate,” Xarus continued, the faintest curve touching his mouth. “If that is truly how you wish to be turned.”

The air felt heavier around him, thick with perfume and promise. In this place, desire was currency and danger was foreplay. No one pretended otherwise.

“I assume that’s why you’ve come to my doorstep tonight,” Xarus went on, his gaze drifting between them with deliberate slowness. “The dreams. The heat beneath your skin. The way the night calls to you louder than the day ever could.”

His smile sharpened just enough to reveal the threat beneath the charm.

“And now,” he said softly, “you’re finally ready to take the next step.”

Jennifer stared at Mina with fear and fascination. She had rarely been spoken to like that at all and never by another woman. Her eyes moved from her and back to Xarus, hearing all of their seductive words. But she couldn't help but laugh. "I didn't mean..." She shook her head slightly. "I was referencing the old saying. Maeve and I being the putative flies. You the spiders."

“Don’t worry,” Mina said with a laugh that stretched her mouth just a little too wide, her fangs gleaming as she teased Jennifer. “We’ll have centuries to corrupt that cute, innocent mind of yours.”

Her eyes sparkled with wicked amusement as she turned toward Xarus. “We should turn them before the blood bath. Then they can join in the fun.”

“Yes,” Xarus replied, his voice touched with boredom, almost condescending. The hunt clearly thrilled him far more than the kill itself. “Damian and his Lost Boys may have bitten them first, but their blood ties are to me. That makes it my right to turn them.”

He glanced toward Mina, who was already pouting at his decision. His reference to some unknown vampiric rule had drained the excitement from her earlier enthusiasm.

Xarus shifted his gaze back to the two women, his cool smile returning.

“So,” he said smoothly, looking between Jennifer and Maeve, “which one of you would like to go first?” A faint, amused curl tugged at the corner of his lips. “I promise,” he added, “the other one gets to watch.”

Jennifer had felt so brave and strong and grown-up and sexy coming up here. But, now that the moment came, her heart was pounding. She froze for a moment like a deer in headlights. She looked from Mina to Xarus. She looked at Maeve and felt a swell of protectiveness like that Maeve had felt for her. She took a deep breath and hoped it would be attributed to nerves. She forced herself to wink at Mina and then gave Xarus a slow smile. "I am the oldest," she said as she lifted her chin. "I want to die young and stay pretty." The words were coy. Her gaze was focused. But her mind was screaming. Now was the time to signal the telepath.

~ JEAN. WE'RE AMONG THEM AND HAVE THEIR FULL ATTENTION. ~ Jennifer thought frantically, even as she tried to also send a visual of their immediate environs.


~* ‘Do you have a location where the team can teleport inside?’ *~ Jean asked telepathically as she projected the floor plan Jessica Jones had uncovered during her investigation into her and Maeve's minds. ~* ‘Give me a spot and I’ll pass it along to Alaric.’ *~

“Perfect.” Xarus said with a slow, wolfish grin that made Maeve and Jennifer’s blood run cold. He rose from his seat in a single fluid motion. There was something predatory in the way he moved, it was graceful and unhurried, like a creature that had never once doubted it was the most dangerous thing in the room.

In the next instant he was beside Jennifer.

Xarus reached out and slid his fingers through her hair, almost tenderly at first, before tightening his grip and pulling her head back to bare the delicate hollow of her throat. The motion was intimate yet uncomfortably possessive as his lips hovered just beside her ear.

“When you fall…” he murmured, his voice a low velvet purr that carried the promise of both pleasure and ruin, “…I will catch you.”

The words brushed across her skin like silk over a blade.

Then his mouth found her neck.

He pressed slow, intoxicating kisses along the line of her throat, lingering just long enough to make the moment dizzyingly indulgent. Xarus was a predator savoring the seconds before the inevitable pain.

Jennifer was panicking more than a little now a little now. His hands were on her. He was kissing her as only one person ever had before. She could feel his fangs. This has been her plan. But she seemed to be sinking into it. She struggled to snap out of it. It would be so easy to just let it happen. Part of her...Part of her...That was just poison. Even as she felt the teeth, she struggled to think of the map Jean was projecting. She compared it to the path she and Maeve had taken through the club and she focused on exactly where they were. ~HERE~ she sent to Jean, concentrating on an exact spot on the map. Imagining a flashing light and an arrow. Her hands moved to Xarus's arms. As they might if she were truly seeking this. She waited a moment. Giving the X-Men time. Jean time to communicate with Alaric. But then she shoved back hard at the same moment that her knee came up with all the strength she could give it. She assumed real vampires had even greater strength and speed, but she had him distracted and it a ...sensitive...spot. In the instant she connected, she shoved him back as hard as he could.

Maeve moved the second Jennifer shoved him.

There was no pause, no shock, no frozen beat where the room had to catch up. The moment Xarus reeled and the atmosphere in the lounge changed, Maeve was already on her feet and turning, quick as a struck match.

She planted herself back-to-back with Jennifer, one hand finding her friend’s arm for half a second just to make sure she was there, upright, real, before dropping again. The contact was brief but firm, a silent I’m here. Stay with me.

The whole room seemed to inhale.

Mina’s smile vanished first. What had been playful and predatory a second ago turned sharp and ugly, her face tightening with offence. Around them, the other vampires shifted in kind, amusement burning off like mist under a hard sun. Bodies that had been languid and lounging straightened. Hands stilled on glasses and chair arms. Eyes narrowed. Hunger turned mean.

Maeve’s pulse was hammering now, but it felt clean. Useful.

Her gaze cut across the lounge, tracking movement, counting distance, measuring angles without thinking about it. The bass from below still thudded through the floor, but up here it suddenly felt far away, swallowed beneath the much more immediate sound of leather creaking, breath catching, and the brittle little silence that always came just before a fight.

“Well,” Maeve said, breathless but steady, the words edged with a grim sort of humour, “that’s us done pretendin’.”

She shifted her footing, shoulders squared, every line of her body tight and ready as the vampires around them reacted to Jennifer’s attack on Xarus.

As the pair shoved back against Xarus, the music below abruptly shifted—bass dropping into a heavier, pounding rhythm that seemed to shake the bones of the building. Lights snapped into violent strobes, flashing white and crimson as they pulsed in time with the beat. For a heartbeat the entire club seemed to hold its breath, and then the crowd on the dance floor erupted. Patrons threw their hands into the air, shouting and cheering as if they had been waiting all night for this exact moment—the long-promised climax of Club Blood’s spectacle.

A chant began somewhere near the center of the floor, spreading outward in waves as bodies pressed closer together. People laughed, screamed, and craned their necks upward, eyes gleaming under the frantic lights. The anticipation was electric, contagious; even those on the balcony leaned over the railing, eager not to miss a second.

Then the fire sprinklers burst to life overhead.

At first it came as a mist, and then a heavy rain, thick red liquid cascading down in glistening sheets. The metallic scent of iron filled the air almost instantly. When the first drops struck the crowd, there was a split second of stunned delight before the entire sea of people lost control. They howled, danced harder, reaching up to let it pour over their faces and clothes. Some spun beneath the crimson downpour, others shouted in triumph as though they’d been blessed by it.

What had been excitement twisted into something feral.

Chaos erupted across both floors of the club. Blood rained onto the dance floor in a relentless torrent, and the vampires among the crowd bared their teeth with snarls that cut through the music. Hunger ignited in their eyes, raw and unmistakable, as the frenzy surged through the club like a living thing.

- TBC -

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